Date of Award

Summer 7-22-2014

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

EdD Education Leadership, Management and Policy

Department

Education Leadership, Management and Policy

Advisor

Christopher Tienken, EdD

Committee Member

Luke Stedrak, EdD

Committee Member

Gerard Babo, EdD

Keywords

New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, Length of the school day, Socioeconomic Status, Regression, Factorial ANOVA, One-Way ANOVA, Proficient and Advanced Proficient Scores, Grades 6, 7, & 8

Abstract

This cross-sectional, correlational, explanatory study aimed to explain the influence of the length of the school day on the total percentage of students who scored Proficient or Advanced Proficient (TPAP) on the New Jersey Ask (NJ ASK) in both Language Arts and Mathematics in Grades 6-8. The data analyzed included the length of the school day with controlled student, staff, and school variables. The study aimed to provide research-based evidence on the intervention that is being imposed on some school districts by policy makers and bureaucrats. The results from the study serve to distinguish how this intervention influences TPAP based upon socioeconomic status (SES). The study used over 600 public schools for each grade level/subject combination. For all grade level/subject combinations, socioeconomic status (SES) by far had the largest predictive contribution to the dependent variable compared to the other predictor variables. In addition to SES, the other significant variables present in all six models included attendance, student mobility, and school day length. Although school day length was a statistically significant predictor variable in all six models, the R squared contribution of this variable was consistently small, ranging from 0.2% to 1.2%. This illustrated that the length of the school day has a minimal influence on the NJ ASK passing percentage rates in Grades 6, 7, and 8.

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